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Infinite Games?
Anonymous Coward writes "BBC is running a story on how US scientists are working on improving AI - with potential benefits for coming games.
The system, called Liquid Narrative allows to avoid scripted storylines, and finally gives us, the gamers, full freedom to do whatever we want to do. R. Michael Young, the project coordinator, says:
'Game companies are realising that story telling has a lot of potential that has not been tapped yet.'"
When technological innovation was driven by war and/or exploration? Now, it's driven by games.
... and skynet was born!
Anyone remember Trade Wars 2002?
Or Legend of the Red Dragon?
I used to think those went on forever!
Say it ain't so! What happened? Did someone actually play a game that existed before the 3D X-TREME era and realize that games with story and gameplay emphasised over flashy graphics, T&A, and worn out franshises can be actually be good?
Quick, someone call Sony and tell them they're fucked!.
Finally computer game story lines are catching up with pen-and-paper RPGs.
Now if the graphics and audio could only improve on my imagination...
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
... The Mimesis Project might be interesting as well. Apparently, they are using Unreal Tournament as a test-bed for the AI discussed in the article.
:-)
But I'm still at a loss why they chose UT, of all games, as a "story-telling" AI test-bed.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
This technology sounds like adaptation to certain, shall we say, "naughtier" activities than gaming could be a possibility. ;)
They simulated a visit to the Monterey Aquarium, why not simulate, say, a visit to a secluded hamlet in Soviet Russia with Natalie Portman? Sign me up.
Even the best RPGs I've played for the PC have always felt scripted to me. You're limited in the actions you can take or the things you can say. I suppose this is a constraint of dealing with computers. . . but it's also why old-fashioned pencil-and-paper RPGs are still my favorite. You can come up with something the GM/Storyteller never thought of, pull off your idea, and see the results. Most computer RPGs stifle you at step 2.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
but that was before people had run out of ideas pertaining to AI. Today the only problems AI can solve are uninteresting ones.
Not even remotely true. AI faded from the public eye maybe, but there are literally hundreds of interesting projects that are being researched. The field never went away, it just doesn't make it into the mass media.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
So what will you do when you are stuck at the Giant's Drink?
I have been playing Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind since December 31, 2002 and I still can't put it down. It is really neat to have this gigantc scenario to explore and there's always many things around to do that have nothing to do with the main quest. I am positive that after a whole month playing that game I have yet to uncover 25% of the map.
If these people could expand on this concept and come up with a Morrowind model that spans across a few continents instead of one, and with maybe 3-5 main quests that are dynamically generated then it would take months to finish it. The problem is that if it takes so long to finish one game, people will buy less games. Same thing as building a car that runs like new for 10 years. The car company wants you to buy a new car every 5.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
...there's a very interesting game out there called AISLE. It's interactive fiction, and, while you only get one move per game, you can do pretty much anything that you want in that one move. While it certainly isn't infinitely playable, there's feedback for many inputs that you'd never expect.
-R
I have always wondered what the main difference between computer gaming and Pen and Paper gaming. The difference is the assumed rules. If we can set up a universe that has a really good predefined set of rules, like "if (breathing) then alive" etc, then we could put together a real universe.
I remember experimenting with Prolog which is not a set functional language but a rules-based language. By constantly checking the rules you can generate new rules and build a universe (genetically, nuerally).
Our minds are rule based, while our problem solving is sequential. This is the difference and I am glad these people are working on it.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
There is value in basic research, unfortunately very few people in power believe it's worth and are constantly cutting research budgets.
By developing this, wouldn't the game developers be shooting themselves in the foot? If the game industry is dependant on people buying newer and better games (and keeping the money flowing into their pockets), by developing a game that is "infinite" (different every time, with no end), wouldn't people just buy that one game, and stop buying others?
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
A good few years ago, I wrote an MA Thesis on videogame culture. One of the areas that I looked at was the striving towards psychological mastery in videogames through a striving for the end - telos. In psychological terms, videogames insert "the subject into a narrative in which she or he sees herself or himself projected as the hero and potential master" (Peter Buse, 'Nintendo and Telos: Will You Ever Reach the End?' Cultural Critique 34 (1996) 163-84 (p.169))
The ideas that Liquid Narrative are developing - realtime self-evolving narrative strands, reactive storytelling etc, seem to play interestingly into this notion of psychic development.
However, one question I ask is: do games need narrative at all? Games are about play - we are all home ludens. Do basketball games need narrative? The most interesting, successful and universally appealing games are those such as Tetris, where there is no end, but no story to get there either.
I'm joking. I'm not a big gaming person, mostly because I suck at FPS-stuff. I do, however, think that Myst/Riven/Exile/whatever-Mudpie-is-called-now pretty much hit this one on the head. The problem they mention in the article, of infinite storylines, isn't really addressed by the gaming people they interviewed -- the balance has to be between one person or group's 'vision', or telling a story, and the player's receptivity to listen to that storyline. In Deus Ex, the Ion Storm Austin people decided to limit the narrative possibilities around a set two or three paths, and only in the final parts of the game.
OK, so you make a 'game universe' : how is this any different from the mmo games now around?
I'd think this would be more useful to people wanting to develop interactive environment simulations, rather than straight-ahead games : the aquarium as a metaphor probably works between than the FPS idea.
Or maybe I'll just read a book instead.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
but it's already been done. Duke Nukem Forever has that. The story always changes. You never know what to expect, other than there is never an end to the game (or a beginning for that matter!)
You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Why bother.
If an infinite number of monkeys sat down and played an infinite number of games, could they take an infinite number of different storylines?
Of course then are the more important questions like:
Would you have to have an infinite number of monkey feeders to feed the infinite number of monkeys and would they care about playing games with an infinite number of different storylines?
If an infinite number of monkeys had to play an infinite number of games would they really have the "full freedom to do whatever" and if they did wouldn't they stop playing games and go out on a date?
If the infinite number of monkeys were always playing an infinite number of games, how would they be able to procreate and wouldn't that lead the the demise of the infinite number of monkeys making the whole study useless?
Brought to you by Monkeys for Infinite Games (MIG)
The Japanese style of RPG (e.g. the Final Fantasy series) treats role-playing in an entirely different way. Rather than creating your own character and playing out that role, you play the role of a predetermined character. For such games, scripted stories are very important. The whole point of the game is really to enjoy the story. Japanese RPGs boil down to basically being interactive stories.
As you say, improved AI and non-scripted stories will advance the Western style of role-playing game. However, I don't think it'll they'll have much of an impact on the traditional Japanese story-driven RPGs.
-Stephen
So right now, some people are a bit squeamish about a game like GTA:VC, because of how it sort of encourages killing lots of innocent virtual people.
But I don't think people are worried about killing the "AIs" for their own sake--the civillians are dumber than ants--but because they remind us of "real humans", and we don't want people to become casual about the lives of those.
But what if AI advances to the point where the enemy in the game is effectively self-aware? Works to defend its self-interest, understands the situation and its place in that, has an idea of the motivation of the human player and other ingame entities, etc etc....it's a long way off, but should we ever feel bad about killing 'em?
And if not, why not? Does the fact that these virtual people are likely to be trivially duplicatable inherently diminish their value as entities? (And if so, if someone could make a perfect copy of you right now, would you be more willing to get killed?)
(I think all these thought experiments are interesting, though less so if consciousness (as we commonly think of it) ends up being more or less the "benign user illusion" some materialist philosophers describe it as. But if we take that full viewpoint, we need new standards to base some of our concepts of right and wrong on.)
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
"Thank you Mario, but our princess is in another castle!"
If the game lasts forever then it will probably be sold on a subscription basis.
I had an AI class with him. In one of those classes, he demoed this stuff. It was using the Unreal Tournament engine. Two demos he gave. One, two characters were put in a maze, without scripted moves and only knowledge of their immediate surroundings, and the knowledge of where they want to be and how to open doors (seemed like they had to go press and hold triggers or something, it's been awhile. Wasn't too terribly exciting by itself. This is along the lines I think when I think about traditional AI research, but doesn't strike me as very useful to a game..
The other was the user walked around an aquarium, and fish swam however they saw fit. The interesting part was the plaques that gave information about the animals. There was a database of factoids, and some rules about grammar and various languages, but no pre-written plaques. When viewed, the plaques contained a generated paragraph which presented some of the facts. The paragraph was always different every time you looked, and it could do it in several languages. This demonstrated how it could be used in an educational application, but also how it could be used to make NPC dialog more dynamic and realistic ('Times are Tough...').
The ultimate goal was to have a few stated conditions, and maybe end conditions, and allow the gamer full control over the environment, and have the story adapt to the conditions the player causes, if the story as planned to that point becomes impossible due to a players actions (say player is on an island with only one boat around, and he is expected to go to another island, but destroys the boat instead), a new story is generated on the fly. The computer adlibs. Also, if the game absolutely, positively requires that the player go to another island, some mechanisms can be put in, such as if the boat is not there, helicopter or another boat comes in and the occupants conveniently walk away from it.
He described the goal to be a fully interactive story, that is never the same twice through. A very interesting boon to RPGs as we know it. The aquarium demo at least showed promise for better NPC dialog. I don't know if they have anything to show the evolving story yet though...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
No AI is ever going to be a substitute for good game design and a good story. The article talks about rebuilding the game world if you kill some important ally or destroy an important object, but that's really only applicable for games like Unreal (that they showcase in the article). Unreal isn't a story; sure, it may have some story cobbled together, but Unreal and most games like it are only good for playing against other people and showcasing graphics cards. Something like Deus Ex is infinitely harder to design, because not only do you have to write a compelling story, but you also have to implement it.
Games like the Quest for Glory series were built around the theory that the player will want to be able to do just about anything, to break just about anything, and to be just about anything. They did this very well. It's not about scripting or AI that can allow the player to do anything; it's about using the story and scripting to guide the player without making them feel like they're being guided. Deus Ex is a good example. There are levels that you have to finish, so it's static in that respect, but the manner in which you finish them is completely up to you, and so you feel like you are in control, even though you're doing exactly what the designers wanted you to for most of the game.
People are easily wowed by the next generation of Unreal, and they certainly are quite impressive and expertly done. But they are also quite forgettable. When the last Quest for Glory game came out in '98, I'll bet you that most people pulled out the first four and re-did them (games from the 80's!) just so they could keep their character. Or if they didn't redo them, they had a dusty old floppy somewhere that had it.
Even if we had an AI smart enough to behave like a human, we will never have an AI smart enough to be as creative as humans can.
He plays for the users.
The Sim series of games are inherently unending, yet they're thriving, and now have one of the most recognized brands in the US.
What's kept the Sims series alive? Constant upgrades and updates.
Michael C. Hollinger
Ah crap. Does this mean the next version of Neverwinter Nights won't let me hide behind a rock formation and waste that dragon with my arrows? The bloody thing will actually find a way around? Damn scientists..
Trolling is a art,
How can you seriously complain about that? .. I've got stacks of books collecting dust, but I don't consider that a flaw in the books themselves.
"I've got stacks of games collecting dust.."
Games are just like any other narrative product, like movies or books, you can't just constantly use them and expect to stay entertained. They do, however, lend themselves to re-use, like movies or books, after you've given them time to slip from your mind.
I, for one, am kind of hesitant to say that this kind of automatic storytelling would be a good thing. The really good games, like really good stories, have very enveloping plots. I don't see how an 'automatic' story generator can consistently create an entertaining story line. It might be ok for individualized scenes, but the difficulty in tying all that together into an enjoyable plot seems astronomically difficult.
I think the only infinite game is life.
The problem that 'Liquid Narrative' is addressing goes back at least to George Polti's "36 Dramatic Situations" in the year 1900. My AI faq gives infinitely more perspective than this BBC pap, on the important questions. (It's getting a little stale, but I'm currently revising the timeline with lots of rich resources.)
Now if David Braben and his company would get this new concept of AI into their forthcoming (if ever coming) Elite 4 and add in concepts from Morrowind 2 and fractal generated planetscapes with fractal generated cities and civilisations (You will be able to land on planets and do stuff in Elite 4)... that would be The Infinite Game
I dunno about you, but I get a sense of satisfaction when I finally BEAT a game. You know, complete all the missions, quests, whatever, resolve the story. I want there to be an end boss. I want to kill that boss, save the princess, save the world, whatever. I want to soak up the story that went along with it and remember it fondly, like a good movie. And then I want to get another game and experience the same. For me, gaming is like playing a good novel. Just because it's "open ended" doesn't mean it'll be good. Part of the fun (and frustration) in many games is the limitations and learning to work around them.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
AI is most definitely not nowhere. What is true is that the expectations of most people outside the AI scene were highly unrealistic, and AI had to go through a massive period of readjustment to determine the direction to head in...
Just a recent example - Boeing just nailed the design specs of the new 777 using genetic algorithms to determine the most efficient dimensions.
AI is not what most people imagine it to be.
Ever see a position open at a gaming company for a writer? No, because they don't exist. Game Developers need to realize that writing both narrative and non-narrative storylines is a specialists position.
Hire writers and the games will become much more compelling.
I'm surprised nobody's compared this to good old Orson Scott Card. A game that makes itself up as you keep playing? Next thing you know, we'll have AI constructs self-perpetuating themselves over interplanetary networks...
"Time is an illusion.
Lunchtime doubly so."
-Douglas Adams
David Borowitz
What a poor way to play a role playing game. It seems as if the role you are playing is someone playing an RPG. I'm sure your character walks up to a door and says "sense", or goes into a room and says "detect trap".
Perhaps it is an indication of the skill of the GM, but it is also up to you to role play.
Each side feeds the other. Perhaps if you were to say something like
"Hmm, the door is locked. I look at the handle and lock. Are there any hinges on this side of the door?"
"No"
If you actually do have a magical ability to detect traps, you could say something like:
"I open up my awareness to the chi/feng shui (or whatever genre you are playing in) of the room, does anything seem amiss?"
"Well, the whole room seems kind of off, and the chest in the corner is tickling your awareness more strongly."
However, if you have more of a thief type skill, I would expect you to actually start looking at parts of the room. You might start with:
"I scan the room, looking for anything amiss - cracks in the wall, outcroppings of stone, shelves, niches, darkened areas."
If you actually make an easy detect traps roll, the GM should give you some area to concentrate on, so you can hone your *actual* problem solving skills on the real challenge - the trap.
If not, I would expect you to try and look at individual parts of the room, like the chest, door, walls, floor, ceiling, etc.
I always prefer people to actually *solve* the trap, as opposed to relying on some stupid roll of the dice. Perhaps they can even solve it in a way that I have not thought of, but is reasonable.
I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea.
Unfortunately making games that extend themselves will have some drawbacks for the game industry. If one had to simply buy one game which could evolve as it pleased, instead of buying multiple, specialized games (non-evolving), many game developers would be out a lot of money.
I think that development on this field in the games industry will be hindered, if not stopped (for a while, at least), as the CEO's wouldn't want their salary to go down.
Games like this already exist.
They are merely few and few between.
Baldur's Gate developed something of a growing narrative, where your actions would generate different behavior from good or evil people depending on what you did.
Black & White was somewhat adaptive.
It's just not exactly easy to code a game with that sort of flexibility.
So they can talk all they want, I'll believe it when I see it.
It seems everybody's talking about first-person shooters, which, if that's the point of this seems pretty limited to me, but imagine how much it would change a world war two simulation, where an online group of players were a single squadron. Using a system like this to manage an entire war scenario could bring strategy games to the front and knock splatter games down a peg or two.